Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man Part 40

_Tom:_ Hey! No talking 'cross table!

_Mrs. Arty:_ Um--let--me--see.

_Tom:_ Bid up, bid up! Bid a little seven on hearts?

_Mrs. Arty:_ Just for that I _will_ bid seven on hearts, smarty!

_Tom:_ Oh, how we will squat you!... What you bidding, Wrenn?

Behind Mr. Wrenn, Nelly Croubel whispered to him: "Bid seven on no suit. You've got the joker." Her delicate forefinger, its nail s.h.i.+ning, was pointing at a curious card in his hand.

"Seven nosut," he mumbled.

"Eight hearts," snapped Miss Proudfoot.

Nelly drew up a chair behind Mr. Wrenn's. He listened to her soft explanations with the desperate respect and affection which a green subaltern would give to a general in battle.

Tom and he won the hand. He glanced back at Nelly with awe, then clutched his new hand, fearfully, dizzily, staring at it as though it might conceal one of those malevolent deceivers of which Nelly had just warned him--a left bower.

"Good! Spades--see," said Nelly.

Fifteen minutes later Mr. Wrenn felt that Tom was hoping he would lead a club. He played one, and the whole table said: "That's right. Fine!"

On his shoulder he felt a light tap, and he blushed like a sunset as he peeped back at Nelly.

Mr. Wrenn, the society light, was Our Mr. Wrenn of the Souvenir Company all this time. Indeed, at present he intended to keep on taking The Job seriously until that most mistily distant time, which we all await, "when something turns up." His fondling of the Southern merchants was showing such results that he had grown from an interest in whatever papers were on his desk to a belief in the divine necessity of The Job as a whole. Not now, as of old, did he keep the personal letters in his desk tied up, ready for a sudden departure for Vienna or Kamchatka. Also, he wished to earn much more money for his new career of luxury. Mr. Guilfogle had a.s.sured him that there might be chances ahead--business had been prospering, two new road salesmen and a city-trade man had been added to the staff, and whereas the firm had formerly been jobbers only, buying their novelties from manufacturers, now they were having printed for them their own Lotsa-Snap Cardboard Office Mottoes, which were making a big hit with the trade.

Through his friend Rabin, the salesman, Mr. Wrenn got better acquainted with two great men--Mr. L. J. Glover, the purchasing agent of the Souvenir Company, and John Hensen, the newly engaged head of motto manufacturing. He "wanted to get onto all the different lines of the business so's he could step right in anywhere"; and from these men he learned the valuable secrets of business wherewith the marts of trade build up prosperity for all of us: how to seat a selling agent facing the light, so you can see his face better than he can see yours.

How much ahead of time to telephone the motto-printer that "we've simply got to have proof this afternoon; what's the matter with you, down there? Don't you want our business any more?" He also learned something of the various kinds of cardboard and ink-well gla.s.s, though these, of course, were merely matters of knowledge, not of brilliant business tactics, and far less important than what Tom Poppins and Rabin called "handing out a snappy line of talk."

"Say, you're getting quite chummy lately--reg'lar society leader," Rabin informed him.

Mr. Wrenn's answer was in itself a proof of the soundness of Rabin's observation:

"Sure--I'm going to borrow some money from you fellows. Got to make an impression, see?"

A few hours after this commendation came Istra's second letter:

Mouse dear, I'm so glad to hear about the simpatico boarding- house. Yes indeed I would like to hear about the people in it.

And you are reading history? That's good. I'm getting sick of Paris and some day I'm going to stop an absinthe on the boulevard and slap its face to show I'm a st.u.r.dy moving-picture Western Amurrican and then leap to saddle and pursue the bandit.

I'm working like the devil but what's the use. That is I mean unless one is doing the job well, as I'm glad you are. My Dear, keep it up. You know I want you to be _real_ whatever you are.

I didn't mean to preach but you know I hate people who aren't real--that's why I haven't much of a flair for myself.

_Au recrire_, I. N.

After he had read her letter for the third time he was horribly shocked and regarded himself as a traitor, because he found that he was only pretending to be enjoyably excited over it.... It seemed so detached from himself. "Flair"--"_au recrire_."

Now, what did those mean? And Istra was always so discontented.

"What 'd she do if she had to be on the job like Nelly?... Oh, Istra _is_ wonderful. But--gee!--I dunno--"

And when he who has valorously loved says "But--gee!--I dunno--" love flees in panic.

He walked home thoughtfully.

After dinner he said abruptly to Nelly, "I had a letter from Paris to-day."

"Honestly? Who is she?"

"G-g-g-g--"

"Oh, it's always a she."

"Why--uh--it _is_ from a girl. I started to tell you about her one day. She's an artist, and once we took a long tramp in the country. I met her--she was staying at the same place as I was in London. But--oh, gee! I dunno; she's so blame literary.

She _is_ a _fine_ person--Do you think you'd like a girl like that?"

"Maybe I would."

"If she was a man?"

"Oh, yes-s! Artists are so romantic."

"But they ain't on the job more 'n half the time," he said, jealously.

"Yes, that's _so_."

His hand stole secretly, craftily skirting a cus.h.i.+on, to touch hers--which she withdrew, laughing:

"Hump-a! You go hold your artist's hand!"

"Oh, Miss Nelly! When I _told_ you about her _myself!_"

"Oh yes, of course."

She was contrite, and they played Five Hundred animatedly all evening.

CHAPTER XVI

HE BECOMES MILDLY RELIGIOUS AND HIGHLY LITERARY